Beneficial Technology

When I first started reading the article “Technology Doesn’t Dumb Us Down. It Frees Our Minds.”, I was thrown off by the notion that Carr believes that Google is making us stupid. I, for one, embrace the fact that new technologies have helped make our lives better and is continuously doing so. Day to day life without basic technologies would be much more complicated, in my opinion. It is how we use these technologies to our advantage and not let it take over our lives. This article I found talks about how we can use technology to our benefit. :

This means we need to start using technology and computers rather than letting it use us. We can use technology to update many of our sociological requirements, politics, education, profession and family organization, and perhaps we do not look at doing this because it requires external evolution of the machine, sociological changes allowing new uses which are not naturally evolved, which we force upon our preconception of technology.

An example of this is something as simple as learning how to tie a tie is available to anyone with Internet access. We must embrace this wave of technology and use it for useful purposes. Computers do not “flatten our intelligence”. After Hurricane Ike, I was hooked onto the Houston Chronicle website. With the hourly updates, I felt more informed of what was happening. With Internet access, the world is at our fingertips. Who hasn’t “googled” something when they didn’t know much about particular topic. There is a plethora of information out there on the Internet for our taking. It is the person behind the computer who decides what they want to delve into. We must use it to our advantage. With the tons of information out there we should be thankful. With the release of more technologically advanced cell phones with Internet access and big screen, the possibilities are endless. Technology is ours for the taking.